NDA nominates Najma Heptullah for Vice Presidential polls

The BJP-led NDA today announced the candidature of Najma Heptullah for the Vice Presidential elections.

New Delhi, July 22 : The BJP-led NDA today announced the candidature of Najma Heptullah for the Vice Presidential elections.

Najma, 67, had been closely associated with the Congress party for over three decades, before joining BJP ahead of the 2004 general elections.

With her nomination being announced, the race to become country's next Vice President has become a triangular one with all the candidates being Muslims. arlier the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) or the Third Front had announced Rashid Masood as its Vice Presidential candidate and the UPA-Left had announced Hamid Ansari's candidature.

BJP rejected Congress' request for not putting up a candidate. On Saturday, Congress leaders had asked BJP not to contest the election in view of the latter's candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat's huge defeat in the presidential polls.

In the Vice Presidential polls, Members of Parliaments (MPs) constitute the Electoral College, and Shekhawat managed to get only 232 MPs' votes in his favour out of the 674 who had voted during the presidential polls.

Today, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said: "In a democracy, the opposition is duty-bound to give a fight if those in power do no reach out to it for a consensus candidate."

Brushing aside the notion that BJP decided to field Najma on the basis of her religion and gender, Swaraj said that the candidature of the former Deputy Chairperson of Rajya Sabha was decided "purely on merit."

Meanwhile in Bangalore, senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu lashed out at the UNPA for abstaining during the Presidential polls.

" People who abstained from voting should do some soul searching," Naidu told reporters.

"Yes, we have lost the election. But we have put Congress in the dock here. It is our victory", Naidu said, when asked about levelling charges against president-elect Pratibha Patil.

ANI